Black
people are murdering themselves, Dr. Alveda King, niece of civil rights
icon Martin Luther King says. King is taking a controversial stance
when it comes to abortion, but she's spreading her message as far and
wide to all people who have ears to hear.

Dr. Alveda King opened with a discussion of her family background and the ways it shaped her, most notably her faith and her commitment to protecting life at all stages.

Highlights

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The high rate of abortion among African Americans was one of the keynote messages of a speech King gave earlier this week at the University of Missouri.

King shared these stark figures: More than 16,000,000 African-American children have been aborted since Roe v. Wade. Even worse, these abortions have occurred within a minority group that makes up just 13 percent of the American population.

Recent news headlines hammer home King's speech: "In Georgia, 53.6 Percent of Babies Aborted Are Black," "In Mississippi, 72 Percent of the Babies Aborted Are Black," and "More Black Babies Die in Abortions in New York City than Given Birth."

Nearly 200 people converged at Columbia's Jesse Auditorium this week to hear from the pro-life and civil rights activist, who linked the right-to-life cause to modern-day civil rights.

King opened with a discussion of her family background and the ways it shaped her, most notably her faith and her commitment to protecting life at all stages.

"There is only one race on the planet," Dr. King stated, "the human race." She went on to cite 1 Corinthians 13: "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

King spoke about her own experiences concerning abortion. Her mother was encouraged to abort her while pregnant. King herself underwent two abortions before the words of her grandfather touched her.

"The woman has a right to choose what happens to her body," Dr. King recalls her grandfather saying, "but that baby is not her body."

A respected civil rights activist in her own right, King has received the Life Prize Award and the Civil Rights Award from the Congress of Racial Equality. She also currently serves as a Pastoral Associate with Priests for Life.

In the past, her speeches have touched on the effects of abortion on the black community as well.

"My grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., once said, 'No one is going to kill a child of mine.' Tragically, two of his grandchildren had already been aborted when he saved the life of his next great-grandson with this statement. His son, King once said, 'The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.' How can the 'Dream' survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate."